Experience still matters. Previous failures help. Age can actually be a positive.

The unpredictable Final Four on tap for Saturday in Glendale, Ariz. — Gonzaga and South Carolina have never been this far; Oregon hasn’t been since 1939; leaving North Carolina as the one tradition-rich program headed to the desert — is further proof that while mega-talented freshmen may produce the most hype and garner the most attention, they don’t run the sport.

Kentucky, UCLA and Duke — the three programs led by one-and-done prospects this year — wont be participating in college basketball’s premier event. The only way Lonzo Ball, De’Aaron Fox and Jayson Tatum can take part in the Final Four is as spectators.

Instead, Saturday night’s doubleheader at University of Phoenix Stadium will be a procession of experience, battle-tested seniors and players who opted to return to school.

The four programs are built differently, and have taken different paths, but they are similar in one respect: experience. Gonzaga is built on three transfers — junior Nigel Williams-Goss (Washington), junior Johnathan Williams (Missouri) and senior Jordan Matthews (California) — and the steady development of senior Przemek Karnowski and junior Silas Melson into significant contributors.

Oregon has benefited from potential NBA players Tyler Dorsey, a sophomore, and Dillon Brooks, a junior, staying in school after flirting with the draft last spring.

For all of North Carolina’s talent — and it has six McDonald’s All-Americans — it has had just a single one-and-done player, Brandan Wright, since 2006.

South Carolina, a seventh seed, was a newcomer to tournament success this year, but it a team that grew together over the last few years, led by three core seniors: SEC Player of the Year Sindarius Thornwell, Duane Notice and Justin McKie.

There are two freshmen impact players at the final Four — forwards Zach Collins of Gonzaga and Tony Bradley of North Carolina — and both come off the bench. That’s not to say these coaches wouldn’t want the opportunity to coach a Fox or a Ball. Roy Williams and North Carolina have targeted many of the players who have landed at Duke or Kentucky in recent years. Dorsey, many thought, would spend just one year at Oregon.

Last year’s Final Four featured a single one-and-done starter in Syracuse’s Malachi Richardson.

South Carolina’s Justin McKieGetty Images

“If I could coach one-and-dones, I’d be more than happy, because you’ve got pros on your team. You’ve got a chance to be real good,” South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. “But there’s a difference. Seniors, you live together, sometimes you grow together, sometimes you grow further apart just because of relationships and the things that happen through those experiences. But there’s a difference. I know I was completely different at 22 than I was at 18.”

Of course, Kentucky could have easily made the Final Four, losing on a last-second shot to North Carolina on Sunday. Duke ran into a red-hot South Carolina team playing a virtual home game in the second round.

North Carolina’s experience was evident in the final minutes against Kentucky, when it erased a five-point lead in the final 5:03, and then responded to blowing a seven-point lead without calling a timeout, and prevailing on Luke Maye’s jump shot with 0.3 seconds remaining. While Kentucky was scrambling, North Carolina was composed.

“Some teams would just lay down; they didn’t,” Fox said. “They came out, got stops. They could have had their head down when Malik [Monk] hit that [game-tying 3-pointer]. But they came right back at us, hit a big shot.”

North Carolina junior Justin Jackson, who passed on the NBA to chase a national title, said: “That maturity [plays] a huge part.”

In the days leading up the South Region semifinals in Memphis, all the talk was about the Kentucky-UCLA showdown, and the five likely first-round draft picks — Fox, Monk and Bam Adebayo from Kentucky, Ball and T.J. Leaf from UCLA. North Carolina, the No. 1 seed, was mostly forgotten. It bothered some Tar Heels.

“They got high-level players, they got a lot of guys who potentially can be one-and-done. Our [team] is more of guys who have stayed in the program for a while,” North Carolina junior point guard Joel Berry II said. “We get as much hype as the other two teams. That’s fine. They have potential [lottery] picks. So you expect that. That’s what people want to see, the fans in the NBA get hype about that.”

Hype, however, doesn’t produce Final Four trips. This year, experience has.